Theurer created a game and showed it to his superiors…and they told him to dump it unless he could “do something special with it.” Theurer told them about a nightmare he’d had about monsters climbing out of a hole in the ground and coming to get him. “I can put it on a flat surface and wrap that surface around to make a cylinder, and rotate the cylinder,” Theurer suggested. As he conceived it, the cylinder would move while the player stood still…but he abandoned that idea when the rotating cylinder started giving players motion sickness. “I switched it so the player moved around,” Theurer says. “That fixed it.”
Theater spotlights used to burn lime for light. That’s where the term limelight comes from.
PAC-MAN (Namco, 1980)
Object: Maneuver Pac-Man through a maze and eat all 240 dots without getting caught by one of the four “ghosts”—Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde.
Origin: In 1979 a game designer named Toru Iwatani decided to make a game that would appeal to women, who were less interested in violent, shoot-the-alien games like Space Invaders. Iwatani thought that eating things on the computer screen would make a good nonviolent alternative to shooting them. He came up with the idea for the Pac-Man character over lunch. “I was having pizza,” he says. “I took one wedge and there it was, the figure of Pac-Man.” Well, almost: Pac-Man was originally supposed to be called Puck-Man, because the main character was round like a hockey puck…but the name was changed to Pac-Man, because Namco officials “worried about American vandals changing the ‘P’ to an ‘F’.”
DONKEY KONG (Nintendo, 1980)
Object: Get the girl.
Origin: One of Nintendo’s first video games was a Space Invaders knockoff called Radarscope. It flopped in the United States, nearly bankrupting the distributor—who wanted to stop doing business with Nintendo. What could Nintendo do? They promised to ship new chips to American distributors so the unsold Radarscope games could be turned into new games.
There was just one problem—they didn’t have any new game chips. So Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi told the company’s staff artist, Shigeru Miyamoto, to come up with something, fast.
Miyamoto had never made a game before, and he hated tennis games, shooting games, and most games that were popular at the time. So he invented a game about a janitor who has to rescue his girlfriend from his pet ape, who has taken her to the top of a construction site. Miyamoto wanted to name the game after the ape, so he looked up the words for “stubborn” and “ape” in his Japan-ese/English dictionary…and found the words “donkey” and “Kong.” Donkey Kong went on to become one of the most successful video games in history, giving Nintendo the boost it needed to build itself into a multibillion-dollar company and an international video game juggernaut. And it might never have succeeded if Radarscope hadn’t failed.
If you plant bamboo today, it may not sprout flowers and produce seeds for 100 years.
DEFENDER (Williams Electronics, 1980)
Object: Use your spacecraft to shoot hostile aliens while saving humanoids from being kidnapped and turned into mutants.
Origin: Another game helped along by a dream: Defender was supposed to make its debut at the 1980 Amusement & Music Operators of America (AMOA) convention, but less than two weeks before his deadline, creator Eugene Jarvis had only the rough outlines of a game—the name, Defender, and a spaceship attacking aliens, all against a planetary backdrop dotted with humanoids who didn’t really do anything. What was the defender defending?
“The answer came to him in a dream,” Nick Montfort writes in Supercade. “Those seemingly pointless little men, trapped on the surface below, they were the ones to be defended.”
Jarvis made his deadline, but the AMOA was afraid the game was too complicated. They were wrong. Defender became one of the most popular games of the year and made so much money that in 1981 the AMOA voted it Video Game of the Year.
LEGENDARY FLOP: LUNAR LANDER (Atari, 1979)
Object: Find a flat spot on the lunar surface and use your booster engines to slow your spaceship (without running out of fuel) and land it safely on the moon.
Origin: The game was adapted from a computer simulation used in college physics courses to teach students about lunar gravity. Atari had high hopes for the game, even designing a special two-handled lever that controlled the booster engines. It flopped. So did the special lever: “Springs on the lever made it snap back in place when it was released,” Steven Kent writes in The Ultimate History of Video Games. “Unfortunately, some younger players got their faces too close to the lever, resulting in complaints about children being hit in the face.”
Odds of being killed by a bolt of lightning are about the same as being killed falling out of bed.
DUMB CROOKS
More proof that crime doesn’t pay.
THE RIGHT TO REMAIN STUPID
“An Illinois woman, when asked to walk a straight line after being pulled over for weaving across a highway divider, told the state trooper, “You’ll have to give me a little longer. This is tougher when you’ve been drinking.”
—Bloomington-Normal Daily Pantograph
OVERNIGHT SENSATION
HELSINGBORG, Sweden—“A 20-year-old man developed what he thought to be a foolproof robbery plan. He hid in a store, waited for employees to leave for the night, and proceeded to rob the place. All was going according to plan until, as he was stuffing items in a sack, he realized he was locked in the store. He tried using a crowbar to open the front door and then attempted to break through a wall in the restrooms, but to no avail. He finally gave up and called the police.”
—Bizarre News
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN…
SAN JOSE, California—“According to the Department of Corrections, Arnold Ancheta, 25, apparently escaped from Elmwood Correctional Facility by squeezing through the bars on the roof of his cell, breaking out through the skylight, and jumping down from the roof. But then, instead of heading toward the fence that leads to the road, he jumped a smaller fence and ended up on the women’s side of the facility. Female inmates saw Ancheta running around the yard and alerted correctional officers. He was taken to a hospital and then back to jail.”
— San Diego Union-Tribune
PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE?
“A bank robber in Fresno, California, made a withdrawal from his own account, then demanded all the money in the bank vault. When they told him it would take 15 minutes to empty the vault, he went outside to wait patiently on the curb, according to police, who found him sitting there, still waiting.”
—Fresno Bee
Tickly fact: The U.S. produces 2 to 4 billion lbs. of chicken and turkey feathers every year.
JUST DESSERTS
“In Lafayette, Louisiana, a man robbed a bank with his head covered in whipped cream. His disguise melted before he could collect the loot, however, and he was later arrested.”
—“The Edge,” The Oregonian
PISTOL-PACKIN’ IDIOT
“Gilbert MacConnell went to the West Hartford, Connecticut, police station in February 2002 for a job interview. He wanted to become a cop. MacConnell, age 35, had already passed the written exam, the oral exam, and the physical agility test. But during an interview with police chief James Strillacci, MacConnell admitted owning an unlicensed gun. Officers found the .45-caliber handgun in his car. ‘Does this mean I’m not getting the job?’ he asked as he was booked and charged with carrying a pistol without a permit and having a concealed weapon in a car. He didn’t get the job.”
—Hartford Courant
YOU REAP WHAT YOU SEW
“Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies investigating the break-in of a sewing shop discovered the theft of a large industrial sewing machine, then noticed a thick thread snagged on the floor. They followed the thread out the door, down the alley, across the street, through a backyard, up some steps, and under a door. After kicking in the door, they discovered the sewing machine in the kitchen and nabbed three surprised thieves.”
&nb
sp; —Maxim
PRINTS CHARMING
“When John Michell’s home was broken into, he did what anyone would do—he called the police. To distinguish his prints from the crook’s, citizen Michell allowed investigators to fingerprint him. Police quickly discovered that Michell himself had been wanted for burglary for three years. Michell is now serving a 12-month sentence.”
—Fortean Times
The glue that barnacles use to stick themselves to ship hulls is twice as strong as epoxy resin.
THE DEATH OF A PRINCESS
She was called the “people’s princess.” Beautiful, kind, and caring, Princess Diana captured the hearts of people around the world. But she was also outspoken and, in the eyes of some very powerful people, a troublemaker. Her worst “offense” may have been her love affair with Egyptian millionaire Dodi Al-Fayed. When the princess and her lover died in a tragic car crash, many were quick to wonder whether it was really an accident.
The Deceased: Diana, Princess of Wales
How She Died: In the early hours of Sunday, August 31, 1997, a black Mercedes S280 carrying Princess Diana and her soon-to-be fiancé Dodi Al-Fayed left the Paris Ritz Hotel. The pair were on their way to Dodi’s Paris apartment. In the front seat Dodi’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, sat beside the driver, Henri Paul, deputy chief of security at the Ritz. As usual, Diana’s vehicle was pursued by “paparazzi”—tabloid photographers with the reputation of doing anything to get a lucrative photograph. At least one photographer was snapping pictures from the back of a high-powered motorcycle.
Minutes later the Mercedes entered the Place de L’Alma tunnel. Some eyewitnesses report hearing an explosion, then a crash. Many of the first people to arrive after the crash described a grisly scene—photographers crowding within inches of the crumpled car, which had hit a support pillar, shooting pictures of the dying princess and the other bloodied victims.
Dodi and Henri Paul were killed instantly. Diana was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where she died three and a half hours after the crash. The only survivor was Trevor Rees-Jones—the one person in the car who had fastened his seatbelt.
Early reports blamed the crash on the paparazzi. According to stories, Henri Paul was driving at high speeds trying to evade them. Or perhaps he was blinded by a flash and swerved into the pillar. An outraged public accused the photographers not only of causing the crash, but also of interfering with the efforts of rescue personnel. (A doctor who came upon the wreck about a minute after the crash says those reports are false—the photographers were not obstructing efforts to help the victims.)
The first American cookbook, The Compleat Housewife, was published in 1746.
Several photographers and a motorcyclist were detained for investigation. The photographers admitted to the chase but denied any responsibility for causing the crash. According to them, the Mercedes had outrun them before they got to the tunnel. They were quickly released.
A blood test on the driver, Henri Paul, raised other possibilities. He had more than three times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood, as well as the antidepressant Prozac. Inexplicably, there were also high levels of carbon monoxide.
Was the crash caused by a mix of zealous photographers and a drunk driver? For some, including French officials who concluded their investigation two years later, it was simply a tragic accident. But others remain convinced there’s more to the story.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Was Diana pregnant? Almost immediately after the crash, rumors began to circulate that Diana had been six weeks’ pregnant with Al-Fayed’s child. She had hinted to the press earlier that she was going to “surprise” them. Could she have been planning to announce her engagement or her pregnancy—or both? One person who believes both is Dodi’s father, billionaire businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed. He has charged that the CIA has tapes from phone taps indicating that Diana was pregnant, and that she and Dodi intended to marry.
An autopsy, which may have revealed the truth, was not performed until her body was returned to England. When asked if Diana had been pregnant, the coroner replied, “No comment.”
Why was there no traffic-camera video of the Mercedes? Paris has one of the most sophisticated video traffic surveillance systems in the world. When Mohamed Al-Fayed asked to see the tapes from the 17 cameras that covered the route the Mercedes took from the Ritz to the tunnel, French officials told him no tapes existed for those cameras at that time. What would the video have shown?
Why did the Mercedes take an indirect route to Dodi’s apartment? The tunnel where the Mercedes crashed was not on the most direct route between the Ritz and Dodi’s apartment. An eyewitness reports seeing a car blocking an exit, forcing the Mercedes to take the road through the tunnel.
Was Henri Paul hired to keep Diana and Al-Fayed under surveillance? A former British intelligence agent claims Henri Paul was an informant for MI6, the British equivalent of the CIA. There are reports that Paul had multiple bank accounts with balances that are hard to explain, based on his salary as a security officer at the Ritz. Was Paul an expendable part of the network keeping track of Diana and Al-Fayed?
Was Henri Paul really drunk? According to one expert, to account for the amount of alcohol reportedly in Paul’s blood, he would have had to drink the equivalent of 10 ounces of whisky (eight shots) within a few hours of leaving the hotel—uncharacteristic behavior according to friends and co-workers. On security camera tapes recorded just before the Mercedes left the hotel, Paul does not appear drunk. His co-workers have also testified that he was not drunk, nor did he have a reputation for heavy drinking.
The sole survivor of the crash, Rees-Jones, received head injuries and claims the last thing he remembers was leaving the Ritz. He told investigators that Paul did not act drunk at the hotel. As Al-Fayed’s bodyguard, Rees-Jones would have had the responsibility to note whether the driver was in a condition to drive safely.
Was the blood test rigged? Was Henri Paul a scapegoat?
Did Rees-Jones expect trouble? Rees-Jones was the only person in the Mercedes wearing a seatbelt. Did the former British paratrooper know something?
Was another car involved? Investigators found evidence that the Mercedes had been grazed by another vehicle just before the crash. Pieces of a taillight and flecks of white paint embedded into the front bumper of the Mercedes probably belonged to a white Fiat Uno, according to their investigations.
Witnesses report seeing a small car cut in front of the Mercedes moments before the crash. Some speculate that the car intentionally slowed down in front of the fast-moving Mercedes as it rounded a slight corner in the tunnel, causing Henri Paul to swerve. The white Fiat has never been found.
Was there an explosion in the tunnel before the crash?
Eyewitnesses report hearing a loud bang in the tunnel just before the crash. Others say they saw a bright light, much brighter than that made by a photographer’s flash. Was someone trying to disorient or blind the driver of the Mercedes?
Why did it take so long to get Diana to the hospital? The doctor who arrived at the site about a minute after the crash quickly noted the conditions of the passengers, then called emergency services. The first ambulance didn’t arrive until 15 minutes later. Diana was treated at the scene for more than 30 minutes after rescue personnel pulled her from the car. The closest hospital with 24-hour emergency service was only a few miles away, normally a 5- to 10-minute drive. The ambulance carrying Diana took 40 minutes to reach the hospital, finally arriving almost two hours after the crash.
Myth-understood: The low man on a totem pole is the most important man in the tribe.
26% of American men say their workplace filing system consists of “putting things in piles.”
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Diana was killed by British intelligence. Richard Tomlinson, a former British intelligence agent, claims British intelligence had the expertise to fake Diana’s crash. He knew of a British plan to assassinate Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic by
faking a car crash similar to the one that killed Diana. According to that plan, the crash would take place in a tunnel and the driver would be disoriented with a powerful strobe light.
Mohamed Al-Fayed has said he is “99.9% certain” Diana and his son were murdered. According to Al-Fayed, British and American intelligence agencies had Diana under surveillance for years and were following her and Dodi for three months before the crash.
Al-Fayed has stated that he believes British intelligence killed Diana and Dodi, and that the CIA has documents directly implicating Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband. According to Al-Fayed, a document quotes Philip as saying of the relationship between Diana and Dodi, “Such an affair is racially and morally repugnant and no son of a Bedouin camel trader is fit for the mother of a future king.”
In many ways Diana was an annoyance to the Royal Family and its supporters. After the end of her “fairy tale” marriage to Prince Charles, she aired her uncomplimentary views of the queen, her former husband, and the rest of the Royal Family in the press. And the public took Diana’s side against the Royals. Some felt Diana was a real threat to the monarchy. Maybe her intent to marry Dodi Al-Fayed was the last straw.
Diana was killed by the CIA. Mohamed Al-Fayed claims the CIA has a secret dossier of more than 1,000 pages on Diana. The princess personally campaigned against the use of landmines, visiting injured victims in Angola and Bosnia. Her high-profile involvement led to an international treaty banning landmines that has been ratified by 125 nations. The United States, a major producer of landmines, has not signed the treaty. Diana was a nuisance to the American arms industry… but would she have been targeted for assassination?
Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader Page 45